Evaluation of Daphnia Magna as an Indicator of Toxicity and Treatment Efficacy of Municipal Sewage Treatment Plant

Performance evaluation of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) with special reference to toxicity reduction using Daphnia magna straus as test organism is very important to study the likely adverse effects of the treated wastewater on the aquatic ecosystem of receiving waters and to detect common environmentally realistic concentrations of pollutants at different concentration levels and toxicity discriminatory ability to distinguish different degree of toxicity and toxic specificity of the compounds on target organisms. This test can be considered as useful analytical tool for screening of chemical analysis and early warning system to monitor the different operational units of wastewater treatment plants. Interrelationship between COD, SS with respect to Daphnia toxicity (Gd) suggests that improvement of the toxicological quality of wastewater could be linked to the removal of both COD and suspended solids. Both the parameters (COD & SS) can serve as a regulatory tool in lieu of an explicit toxicological standard. An important feature of this work was to emphasize the significance of toxicity tests. It could help to reduce influent toxicity and thereby avoid impacting microorganisms\u2019 population in activated sludge systems. This study shows the difference between using physico-chemical and biological criteria to define the quality or toxicity of wastewater, making it clear that both methods are indispensable and complimentary and support the earlier view that Daphnia magna can serve as a valuable model for bio- monitoring of water pollution and for evaluation of the toxicity of an effluent and risk assessment in an aquatic body, as it is highly sensitive to pollutants

A study on the nature and magnitude of variations in different traits in sugarcane

Nature and magnitude of the variation for different agronomic traits in sugarcane under subtropical conditions of North-western Uttar Pradesh was studied. An estimation of heritability and genetic advance of these components under different environmental conditions was worked out. Fourteen sugarcane genotypes in three crop year experiment were analysed for 15 different characters and variance at phenotypic and genotypic levels, broad sense heritability, genetic advance and pooled analysis of variance were worked out. Coefficients of variation were high for the number of canes per plot, cane yield, cane weight, commercial cane sugar at 8 month stage and for sugar yield at harvesting. The highest heritability values were obtained for juice brix %, juice sucrose % and CCS % at 12 month stage, juice brix %, juice sucrose % at 8 month, cane weight, cane yield and sugar yield per plot. The lowest heritability values were observed for number of internodes, CCS % at 8 month stage, cane diameter and juice extraction % at 12 month stage. Genetic Advance was high for cane weight, cane height, number of canes per plot and cane yield. High magnitude of coefficient of variations, high heritability and maximum genetic gain for number of millable canes, cane weight and cane height showed emphatic role of these characters in clonal selection for improvement in cane and sugar yield. Variance analysis indicated significant genetic differences among the varieties for all characters

ALTERNATIVE MICROBIAL INDICATORS OF FAECAL POLLUTION: CURRENT PERSPECTIVE

Worldwide coliform bacteria are used as indicators of fecal contamination and hence, the possible presence of disease causing organisms. Therefore, it is important to understand the potential and limitations of these indicator organisms before realistically implementing guidelines and regulations to safeguard our water resources and public health. This review addresses the limitations of current faecal indicator microorganisms and proposed significant alternative microbial indicators of water and wastewater quality. The relevant literature brings out four such significant microbial water pollution indicators and the study of these indicators will reveal the total spectrum of water borne pathogens. As E.coli and enterococci indicates the presence of bacterial pathogens, Coliphages indicate the presence of enteric viruses, and Clostridium perfringens, an obligate anaerobe, indicates presence of parasitic protozoan and enteric viruses. Therefore, monitoring a suite of indicator organisms in reclaimed effluent is more likely to be predictive of the presence of certain pathogens in order to protect public health, as no single indicator is most highly predictive of membership in the presence or absence category for pathogens

Not Available

Not AvailableNot AvailableNot Availabl

Not Available

Not AvailableNot AvailableNot Availabl

Kinetics and thermodynamics of enhanced adsorption of the dye AR 18 using activated carbons prepared from walnut and poplar woods

Activated carbons prepared from walnut and poplar woods are used as economical adsorbents for the rapid removal and fast adsorption of Acid Red 18 dye from the aqueous solutions; the kinetics, isotherm and thermodynamics studies of the process were well investigated and elucidated. The adsorption phenomenon may be possibly attributed to the formation of various binding bonds between the activated carbons, developed from the poplar and walnut woods, surface and the dye molecules; adsorption may firstly take place on the external surface of the developed adsorbent i.e. activated carbon developed from the walnut and poplar wood particles, where the attached functional groups play a crucial role in the rapid removal and fast adsorption. Secondly, adsorption may take place on the entire surface, which leads to a uniform distribution of adsorbed Acid Red 18 molecules onto the developed adsorbents. Forces that are responsible for the main adsorption mechanism are �-� attraction between Acid Red 18 dye molecules and the CC bonds of the developed adsorbents. Consequently, at least three types of adsorption sites might occur on the adsorbent surface; these are basal plane, edge plane and micropores. Neither pseudo-first order kinetic model nor pseudo-second order kinetic model was able to describe the adsorption process of AR18 molecules onto the activated carbon from poplar wood.Scopu

Multimarker risk stratification approach and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with stable coronary artery disease undergoing elective percutaneous coronary intervention

Aims: We studied the utility of multimarker risk stratification approach to predict cardiovascular outcomes in patients with stable coronary artery disease, undergoing elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Methods: We prospectively evaluated 302 consecutive patients with stable coronary artery disease and normal CPK-MB and cardiac troponin T levels, and who underwent elective PCI at our institution. The following cardiac biomarkers were measured before and between 12 and 24 h post-procedure: CK-MB, cardiac troponin T, hs-CRP, and NT-ProBNP. Patients were followed up for a minimum of 6 months. Results: Post-PCI, CPK-MB levels were elevated but below myocardial infarction (MI) range in 70 patients (23%), and in the MI range in 6 patients (2%). Troponin T levels were detectable but below the 99th percentile (microleak) in 32 patients (10.6%) and elevated above the 99th percentile (periprocedural MI) in 104 patients (34.4%). At 9 months’ follow-up, 1% died, 2% had stable angina, 10.3% had non-fatal MI, and 87.7% remained asymptomatic. There was no significant difference in clinical events among groups stratified by elevation of one biomarker or multiple biomarkers. Conclusion: Single or multiple biomarker strategy in patients with normal baseline biomarkers failed to predict major cardiac events after PCI over medium-term follow-up